kbps

Move

2005-05-11T18:31:00.000-04:00

Blog continues here.

A Flat Hierarchy for Subjective mp3 Tags

2005-05-01T12:33:00.000-04:00

I've always been anal about the way my mp3s are tagged. Before the iPod, Audioscrobbler, and foobar2000, it was an irrational obsession, since I keep my music well-sorted on my hard drive. But there's something so "official" about mp3 tags that I find appealing.

A few years ago this fixation extended to a program called MoodLogic, which applies a user-maintained database of really specific information about songs to construct playlists to match particular moods. In the end it proved more work than it was worth for me, so I abandoned it, but I've always wished for a similarly intuitive method of music browsing and playlist creation (come on, alphabetically?).

The genre tag has always been the most elusive. The subjective if not totally baseless distinctions between "Pop/Rock," "Rock," and "Pop" are enough to aggravate even the mildest case of OCD. I never bothered with this kind of categorization until recently when I realized that foobar2000 can handle multiple values for one tag field. Interesting...

allmusic does a pretty decent job of providing many (sometimes too many) adjectives it calls "styles," "moods," and "themes" for artists and individual albums. These adjectives can be semi-automatically added to mp3s on a per-album basis with tagging program The GodFather and a special patch. The tag fields "styles," "tones," and "situation" are created and the values are separated by commas. Using foobar2000's masstagger to split the fields and Columns UI's Albumlist Panel to sort your collection by these fields, you can produce something like this:

Here my music is sorted by tones, which is a much more natural way to find what I'm really in the mood to hear. Some of the tones allmusic assigns can be ambiguous or even useless (what does "crunchy" mean and why does it only apply to White Light/White Heat?), but the benefit of this system is that every album contains multiple values in its tones tags, and so White Light/White Heat can also be found under "Brittle," "Confrontational," "Harsh," "Cerebral," "Ominous," "Fiery," "Intense"...only to name a few. But if you focus on browsing only the tones with a medium degree of popularity, you'll find what you really want to hear much faster. And you'll find yourself listening to way more of the second half of the alphabet than you have been.

I didn't know it as I was applying this system to my foobar2000 config, but it's an example of what's called flat hierarchy. I can't explain it better than this post on beelerspace, which is a pretty wonderful blog in general.

Now here's the really exciting part. There is also a database search component for foobar2000 that features a "search for same" option. For instance, it allows you to right-click on a song in your playlist and generate a new playlist of all tracks in your database with the same artist, album, year, etc. So imagine this: it's Sunday afternoon and you'd like to make up a playlist, but you're not sure what you want on it. You do know that you want to hear White Light/White Heat, so you load that album, right-click on one of the tracks and generate a playlist with matching values in the tones tag. Now you have a playlist with tons of stuff that sounds like White Light/White Heat!

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Currently the database search component only allows you to match one value or all values in your search. Because White Light/White Heat has 21 tones values, matching just one of those tones is pretty easy; in my collection that search returns 1,895 tracks. Matching all 21 tones, on the other hand, narrows the search all the way down to just this album. In the future the database search might have the capability to match a user-specified number of values, in which case matching three or four tones might return a comfortable ten or fifteen similar albums. When that happens, you won't be able to justify not using foobar2000 much longer.

Alden Penner 7" arrives

2005-04-20T18:47:00.000-04:00

With crayons, as promised.

The sleeve is an inverted sleeve of some other 7".

The back contains instructions for coloring the front: red lava, green volcano, blue sky.

$61.48

2005-04-17T01:47:00.000-04:00

Five factory sealed and one from Mars. Thanks to Used Kids Records, Magnolia Thunderpussy, and Johnny Go's House O' Music, all on High Street in Columbus, OH. Demoted CDs soon to appear on eBay. The bike is not resting on Aeroplane.

The Unicorns Diffuse

2005-04-08T19:04:00.000-04:00

UPDATE, APRIL 12: Added mp3

Late, late, late last night I learned that Alden Ginger recently released his own 7" under the moniker Alden Penner. The A-side is brand new, recorded on some leg of The Unicorns' epic 2004 tour, and the B-side is old favorite "We are fighting the demons of Côte St-Paul" (mp3, 3.34MB), originally released by Alden via New Music Canada, presented here as "L'Espair." Read this hilarious review on Cokemachineglow.com, then order the single from the link at the bottom of the page; it's $15 US (including shipping), comes with a box of crayons, and is limited to 100 pressings.

If for some reason you care what Nick and J'aime are up to, read this article. mp3s of "Th' Corn Gangg"-curated shows become more readily available on SoulSeek every minute.

Be sure to visit The Secret Unic-c-corns Forum while you're at it, the not-so-underground replacement for the official site, which has met the fate ordained for all things Unicorn: a sudden and mysterious death.

Vinyl

2005-03-27T23:27:00.000-05:00

In reading about iTunes and why it's a disease, I was reminded that mp3 compression is an abomination of sound quality. Inspired, and looking for a place to get tickets for The Grog Shop's Minus Story show, I bought Destroyer's This Night on CD at Music Saves, a tiny and tidy little record store next to The Beachland Ballroom (15801 Waterloo Rd., (216) 481-1875). Small as it is, their vinyl selection includes The Unicorns and Panda Bear, which is enough to suggest how perfectly suited they are for me. How it took me so long to hear about this place is a mystery.

Arriving home I wanted to experience my new favorite album in its intended fidelity, but that proved impossible with a generic laptop soundcard and a $25 pair of Sony headphones. I quickly decided I needed a real CD player and better headphones, before realizing that I was overlooking a huge disparity, asking myself, "Why did I buy this CD?" Well, to support Dan Bejar, to possess the album's elegant artwork in physical form, and for the pristine, shiny, reflective transcription of sound. "And how will I use the CD?" Well, I'll shelve it...sometimes it'll be in my car I guess, playing out of broken speakers...it's already on my iPod at 160kbps, but I guess I might rip it if someone needs it...and if I'm really in the mood, yeah, I'll pull out my CD player and my new headphones if I ever get any.

All these reasons point to buying vinyl. CDs are only superior in terms of portability, but mp3s make them laughable on that front. Records are usually only a few dollars more than CDs and are offered by most labels on their website. The album art is larger and, if properly cared for, the sound quality is better. Not to mention the obvious psychological advantages. And this makes you wonder more...

Why don't they include CDs with vinyl? The discs themselves can't cost more than a dollar to make. At the very least, how about a password to download high-bitrate mp3s for burning or iPodding?

Even without these conveniences, I can't think of many reasons to spend money on CDs again. They now occupy this awkward middle ground that cassettes did when CDs were introduced. So while in Chicago this weekend, I picked up Destroyer's City of Daughters, Notorious Lightning and Other Works, and Mogwai's Government Commissions (2xLP), all for $36 at Reckless Records, the single best place for new vinyl I've ever been (the latter two records being displayed on the wall alongside Silver Mt. Zion, M. Ward, Dead Meadow, Black Dice, Six Organs of Admittance, etc., etc.). On Broadway near Belmont. Highly recommended.

And if I haven't convinced you to join me in turning a CD collection into a record collection, reading The Vinyl Anachronist at Perfect Sound Forever will.

Hunting Unicorns

2005-03-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

Did you think the Unicorns saga could possibly continue? Neither did I. But thanks to the always-amazing Internet Archive, I discovered that Alden Ginger's New Music Canada site (which is also defunct) was once the All Makes Parts & Collision site. I know, I thought they were on ZeBOX too. Anyway, in addition to conclusively settling the ampersand as the proper conjunction, the site reveals some brand new song titles, including "id didnt know" and "Let's Get Strong." Chances are I already have these, but I'm anxious to apply the titles to two of the five still untitled AMP&C songs I have. But when the songs have been pulled from NMC and there are no track durations listed, what do you do? You're forced to email the given address. This isn't The Unicorns' address, so it's either sitting idly, going unchecked, or it will actually allow me to reach Alden Ginger.

Now, emailing someone whose blisteringly accelerated fame in 2004 led to the rumored break-up of his band is kind of a delicate issue, especially when you're emailing him about some very, very rare bootlegs that he probably doesn't want you to have. You have to be polite, to demonstrate that you are a true fan, to be non-obsessive, but to get your foot in the door for either (a) track durations or (b) actual mp3s. Neither of these outcomes are remotely likely. Still, I had to try:

Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:16:09 -0500
Subject: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

hey, am i writing an email to alden ginger? if so, i love all your stuff, the unicorns stuff, and i really love your solo stuff too. that song "soon" that was hosted on new music canada is really brilliant and beautiful i think, i put that on mix cds all the time. anyway i got this email address from an old amp&c site on new music canada, so i thought i'd send a note. what's up with those songs on there, "id didn't know," "oh leopold," and "let's get strong"? i'd be really interested to hear those, are you gonna host them somewhere else ever?

anyway thanks tons and tons for all the music you've made. keep sweet.

-jay

I should note that "Zzzz" is the name of one of The Unicorns' side-projects, and that "keep sweet" is the signature frequently used by The Unicorns themselves in forums and on t-shirts.

The site also lists a mailing address for "Pony Expert," AMP&C's purported label, so of course a formal letter is in order:

March 3, 2005

Pony Expert
3872 Barclay Rd
Campbell River, BC
CANADA

Dear Pony Expert,

I would like information about the band All Makes Parts & Collision, including how I may purchase some of their records.

Thank you,
Justin

Awaiting replies.

All these sparse and fleeting Unicorns gems are really motivating me to do some careful archiving of my own.

MST128K

2005-03-01T15:08:00.000-05:00

My life in the past few days has been overtaken by MST3K. I discovered that there's a video version of Winamp's ShoutCast, with some channels streaming tv shows 24 hours a day. Two of these channels stream MST3K, and though the streams are usually maxed out on viewers, for $4 my IP is on the VIP list of this stream, which means uninterrupted MST3K until March 31.

When a KTMA-era mini-marathon was scheduled last weekend, I knew I had to "tape" it. I probably could have guessed that these episodes are readily available via various p2p outlets, but I also would have guessed (rightly) that the files are kept extremely large for the sake of quality. Ideally I wanted to save video from the stream in very low quality; nearly all of an MST3K episode is silhouettes and bad movies anyway, so this could hardly be considered "compromise."

The only program I'd heard of that might be capable of capturing streaming video was StreamBox VCR, but from what I'd gathered it was riddled with legal issues and bugs. I've also had terrible luck with video software in general, so I wasn't hopeful. But I quickly stumbled upon Net Transport, "a faster, exciting, and the most powerful downloading tool that you ever saw [sic, sic, sic]," lightweight and with no nags or spyware. I was amazed when within a few minutes I was recording KTMA episode 5 in ShoutCast's 128kbps, meg-a-minute .nsv format.

Recording is still kind of a pain -- it's very manual so I inevitably lose a few seconds at the beginning of each episode if there's a quick turn-around; I can't know exactly when a particular episode will start, so scheduling is out of the question; memory shortages have broken the stream once or twice; and the support lifespan and editing capabilities of the .nsv format are both questionable.

When I'm not frantically configuring a recording session, I'm learning a lot about the show I ditched bitterly after Joel left, cursing my mom for taping over my Turkey Day collection, shaming the ungrateful 14-year-old who took the show so for granted, and trying to relive all the endearment and wonder that surrounded the show and its fans. I found out that the MST3K Info Club still kind of exists, and I finally became a member, for whatever that's worth. Best Brains put out a "Scrapbook Tape" in 1995 that boasts the most in-depth look at the show ever composed. And in the first episode of the tenth season, when cancellation had been made official, Joel briefly returned to the SoL:

Eerie.

Some more links:

The MST3K Reference Guide: Useful site includes photo gallery, articles, episode guides, etc. Great place to find images from the KTMA episodes if you've never seen them.
The Almost But Not Quite Complete History of MST3K: Very, very, very thorough.
MST3K DAP: the Digital Archive Project keeps non-Rhino-releases in digital circulation, at about 700 megs an episode for easy storage.

Firefox, video, MST3K

2005-02-28T13:01:00.001-05:00

I still don't get why Firefox is better and more popular than Mozilla ever was, but okay, I'll play along. Especially given these enhancements:

Cookie Button: one of the best features of Mozilla that inexplicably didn't make it to Firefox.
Flashblock: Only see Flash when you want to! This is a miracle.

Finally found a video player to be happy with: Media Player Classic. It's also bundled with Real Alternative, which allows you to play Real format files without relying on the nightmarish RealOne player. This week I also discovered Net Transport, which does the best (i.e., quickest, easiest, and most free) job of saving streaming video I've seen so far. And finally, MST3K is still kicking: there's this gigantic reference site, the still-existent info club, and a legally ambiguous ShoutCast video stream. Shhhhhhhh.

Guero art

2005-02-10T17:35:00.001-05:00

foobar2000

2005-01-29T20:34:00.001-05:00

Last week it was Audioscrobbler. This week it's foobar2000. I eat, sleep, and fuck fb2k. I doodle "%TSOA%" and "000000|C0C0C0" on scraps of paper. I fantasize about the next release of foo_uie_albumlist.dll. I have opinions about forum members. I post a screenshot on my blog. I plan on updating the screenshot frequently.

This is the kind of stuff that makes my day.

2005-01-24T18:21:00.000-05:00

Audioscrobbler is now updating on time and personal weekly charts are in the house.

And I can now say with some confidence that:

04 Chain Reaction -> 11 Farewell Ride
05 Nazarene       -> 13 Emergency Exit

This is the kind of stuff that makes my day.

Unwarranted bitterness

2005-01-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

Stupid Beck. Stupid SoulSeek. "Oh hey Jay, here's the new Beck album. Misinformation? LOL, don't be silly. I'm SoulSeek!" BULLSHIT. Look at this mess:

Lies                     Truth
01 Brazilica          -> 04 Missing
02 Guero              -> 02 Que Onda Guero
03 Go It Alone        -> 10 Go It Alone
04 Chain Reaction     ->
05 Nazarene           ->
06 Black Tambourine   -> 05 Black Tambourine
07 Earthquake Weather -> 06 Earthquake Weather
08 E-Pro              -> 01 E-Pro
09 Summer Girl        -> 03 Girl
10 Scarecrow          -> 09 Scarecrow
11 Track 11           -> 12 Rental Car
12 Track 12           -> 08 Broken Drum
13 Hell Yeah          -> 07 Hell Yes

"Chain Reaction"? "Nazarene"? What, B-sides? Typical. Where's "Emergency Exit"? "Farewell Ride"? Yeah, not so cool anymore, are we SoulSeek?

I do now know that the album is called Guero, but without any leaked album art I had to head this post with the first result of a Google image search on "guero."

Also, Christopher Guest is overrated. Masturbatory tripe.

"Wonderin'"

2005-01-18T18:31:00.000-05:00

Sunday night I saw the most bizarre video on VH1 Classic: "Wonderin'" by Neil and the Shocking Pinks. Everybody's Rockin' was the only album by this "band," a '50s rockabilly send-up orchestrated by Neil F. Young, a convertible, a checked shirt, and a pink tie. I tried really hard to find even a still shot from the video, but the best I could do was this mp3.

"Like a Lion"

2005-01-03T11:37:00.000-05:00

In 2003, The Decemberists contributed "Like a Lion," a previously unreleased song, to a compilation called Preserve, Volume One. Until yesterday I was never able to find it on SoulSeek, which was puzzling considering how huge The Decemberists are there. Well, here it is. It's really strange.

PBF, AS, RSS, LR, SS, NMH, CS

2004-12-18T16:37:00.000-05:00

The Perry Bible Fellowship is even funnier than Square Lake. Sorry.

Audioscrobbler is a plug-in compatible with most mp3 players (including foobar2000) and a website that, with registration, keeps track of the songs you listen to. It's then capable of making suggestions, linking you to people with similar tastes, RSSing your played tracks, and streaming music tailored to your musical habits. My music is being RSSed at the top of this page, thanks in no small part to Tom and the fine people at this site.

I don't know if little radio is any good, but one of its DJs is a little 14-year-old girl who has impeccable taste.

Detailed, Gray's-Anatomy-esque sketches of the skeletal systems of various cartoon characters.

Going Neutral Milk Hotel crazy and finally getting my hands on a rare, mysterious demo tape with five brand new songs and an awesome early version of "April 8th." Listen to all my NMH bootlegs here. Oh plus got a live Circulatory System show to appease me until their much-delayed new album comes out next year.

The Go! Team, South Park torrents, The Pokey Principle, George Carlin

2004-11-07T00:54:00.000-05:00

LISTEN TO THE GO! TEAM:

Here is every South Park episode, available as BitTorrent files.

The Pokey Principle, "the seminal work in Pokey Studies": now only available through Internet Archive.

George Carlin interview.

Revamp, Jon Stewart on Crossfire, Rockbox

2004-10-17T14:30:00.000-04:00

Now this is what a blog should look like!
The two reasons for the revamp:

My coming to terms with / embracing this site's blogdom, and
This video.

The above video features Jon Stewart railing against CNN's journalistic ethics as a guest on Crossfire, and is so un-believe-able that it must be seen by as many people as possible. Isn't it a big deal when a best-selling author, Emmy-winner and generally admired personality so nakedly confronts the practices of the biggest name in cable news on its own show? I think it is. The internet can't be the only place this is getting attention.

I found a new, open-source firmware for my shitty Archos Jukebox called Rockbox. I'm too excited not to mention it.

The Square Lake Vault

2004-01-25T16:02:00.000-05:00

Well, it finally happened. There were hints that The Daily Illini's staff weren't competent enough to maintain archives of Dan Acton's brilliant comic strip Square Lake forever. First Dan's own site, squarelakecomics.com, forfeited to the whims of the German internet porn industry. And now the day has come when the images are slowly being stripped away from dailyillini.com's servers.

Fear not. By some stroke of divine fortune, I was inclined no more than two months ago to mirror the whole series on my own hard drive. Rest assured: as long as I am alive, Square Lake will never die. The soon-to-be-even-more-revamped Square Lake Vault is up and running. And just think: we came this close to losing them forever.

Milk man

2004-01-21T00:51:00.000-05:00

New Deerhoof album, March 9

The Unicorns

2004-01-14T03:15:00.000-05:00

Much continued Unicorns hysteria. After crashing the concert they tried to keep hidden from me last night, I've discovered today that I am at least eight songs shy of truly knowing everything about the band. First I discover two unreleased songs (Do the Knife Fight and Ebb Tide, Azure Sky) that are streamed (in very poor quality) from The Unicorns' abandoned website. After downloading and cracking Liatro SWF Decoder to extract what I hope to be higher-fidelity sources behind the Flash facade, I discover that the sources are, in fact, 24kbps mp3s. Still, I am somewhat comforted to have first-hand sources rather than Messer-recorded copies.

I head to SoulSeek to see if I can find better versions (SoulSeek being the place I initially discovered their pre-album demos), and I immediately turn up (in addition to a 128kbps Do the Knife Fight) two songs I'd never heard of (Big Kind Death and Let Me Sleep). Clearly the work of The Unicorns, I ask the owner of the files to expand on his acquisition of them. He tells me he's from a town neighboring the home of The Unicorns, and that the two mystery songs were either the work of Zzzz, a side-project of The Unicorns responsible for There Are No Answers and an early version of Sea Ghost, which I had already encountered...or of All Makes Parts & Collision, a side-project of Alden's (exclusively, I believe; as visitors to a very old Unicorns guestbook note, "Nick is sloppy"). Not only that, but Alden also works on a solo side-project that's pretty good. Finding this shit is hard enough on its own, let alone reconciling inconsistent bands, titles, and recording dates. How can I be obsessed with something that's such a pain in the ass?

Pokey, Lebowski, mushrooms, GYWO

2004-01-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

Even if you love POKEY THE PENGUIN!! (and you do), you might (like many of its early adherents) have stopped paying attention to it. Well it's time you start again, as some guy has written a "book" (an exaggeration most likely, although its length and depth suggest that it may very well have been a graduate thesis) called The Pokey Principle that analyzes the genius of the comic in excruciating detail. The author discovered Pokey when a professor of his mentioned it (quite literally) as an example of an artistic "masterpiece," along with The White Album and Beck's catalogue.

This Lebowski-themed message board has its members writing Haikus from (nearly) exact quotes. My favorite: "Strong men also cry / Are you surprised at my tears? / Strong men also cry"

Whoever made this has done mushrooms many, many times. Try to count how many faces you see.

Also added a link to get your war on to the header. If you've never read it, you really should. Addictive.

SoulSeek

2004-01-02T20:57:00.000-05:00

My raging enthusiasm for this peer-to-peer file-sharing program called SoulSeek resulted in a very long (and thankfully discarded) post in which I rattled off a dozen or so albums it has brought my way that I was never able to locate on WinMX's network. SoulSeek's users really do have everything you've ever heard of, and the program is brilliantly designed. Suffice it to say (I quote myself here), "DOWNLOAD SOULSEEK NOW IF YOU GIVE A DAMN ABOUT ANYTHING."

I kind of found this Radiohead-bashing rant funny...as a Radiohead fan, I'm not laughing at him, I'm laughing at me. But I still love Radiohead. This rant is part of a series of rants called Your Band Sucks, which is pretty consistently funny. The funniest part is that when I agree with the guy I feel justified, and when I disagree I feel autonomous.

Thanks to SoulSeek and some involved internet research, I've come to acquire somewhere close to everything The Unicorns have ever recorded. To follow my binary quest, click here and here and here and here. Adventures in SoulSeek and Google have also led to massive updates of my Deerhoof discography, the so near-completion of my collection, and a number of songs that are utterly irreconcilable with what I know about their history.

Happy New Year.

Self-consciousness

2003-12-16T23:34:00.000-05:00

There's such a great feeling about being deeply infatuated with one song that you know completely redeems you.

I refuse to accept that this is a blog. Blogs have message boards. I'm not that self-important. The only people who might be reading this are friends who already know how to get in touch with me. Most likely you're someone I haven't talked to in years, were linked here by my profile, and read this occasionally out of boredom. I'm not offended, I do exactly the same thing.

In an editorial I'm writing, I need to refer to television/TV. In deciding whether to call it "television" or "TV" I'm reminded of a bit from Mr. Show: "I don't even own a television; notice how I called it 'television,' not 'TV,' because 'TV' is a nickname, and nicknames are for friends, and television is no friend of mine." I can't be that guy. I'm forced to use "TV."

The media

2003-12-15T19:03:00.000-05:00

The headline in the Boston Herald was LIKE A RAT. What bothers me about this? I mean, of course he's a bad guy who deserves to be punished. But there's no room for emotion in justice, be it love or hate. And I don't like being reminded that the proudest moments in some people's lives involve striking another person in the jaw with the butt of a rifle, laughing and dreaming of their names in the paper.

I found out that Mumia has recorded many more essays than listed on Free Speech Radio News, all available on Prison Radio. It's worth it just to hear him quote Dave Chappelle. And in addition to keeping up with those two websites, Democracy Now! is also really good.

Kind of related to these media outlets is WMBR, MIT's campus radio station. Not only do they air FSRN, but they have such impeccable taste for and are so thoroughly in touch with the current music scene that they might be the only radio station you need. And they stream. Sure beats The fucking Planet.

The Pod, etc.

2003-12-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

My faith in humanity has been revived, a little. Last night a guy thanks me for letting him download a Godspeed album on WinMX: an admirable gesture by itself. We get to talking about music, and I happen to mention Ween. He shares my fondness for the band, and goes on to say that The Pod is his favorite album of theirs. I tell him of my woes in trying to download that album over the past few months, hours of effort that have resulted in acquiring a little over half the tracks (not to speak of whether they were incomplete or otherwise flawed). He tells me that he'll rip his copy of the album and share it, so that the next time we're both signed on it'll be ready for me. After a few more minutes of talk he decides to rip it immediately, postponing his across-the-pond bedtime to hasten my long overdue exposure to the album. Long story short, some server problems result in my getting two tracks and being bitter for the rest of the night. I buy the album today to the great delight of the employees at Newbury Comics, only to come home and find this same guy telling me I could now successfully download it from him. Irony costs $15.99.

Chances are you haven't seen this Honda commercial, in which case you're really missing out.

So you like Johnny Depp, but you've been anticipating for years the day you'd get to see him in a purple top hat? That day is not far off, as Tim Burton directs Johnny Depp in Wonka: 2005. The movie Tim Burton was born to direct, finally.

I remember finding this really amusing when I first saw it.

Cultural warfare

2003-12-10T02:01:00.000-05:00

There are an elite few of us who remember the movie Can't Buy Me Love, which I think at this point might only be aired on Comedy Central as part of a block of campy movies between 8am and 2pm on Sundays...if at all. This is a retelling of the classic fable about a nerdy lawnmower (...lawnmower operator; this isn't John Hughes' The Brave Little Toaster) who spends the money he has saved for a telescope to replace a ruined dress for the most popular girl in school. In return, she promises to make him cool. Against ALL ODDS: he becomes cool, she begins to fall for him, he gets an inflated ego, she expresses her disgust (thereby revealing her true feelings), he learns the lesson we learned an hour ago, and they ride off into the sunset on his lawnmower arguing over who has to wear the cowboy hat (see above).

Here's why I mention it: the black media has launched a diabolical scheme. After watching us white people continually coopting their culture, they are now fighting back with a twisted caricature of these social crimes. Black people are remaking Can't Buy Me Love. Based on the original screenplay. For real. It's called Love Don't Co$t a Thing, and it stars Smooooove Steve Harvey, among other black people. As you can see, they've replaced the white people with black people and the cowboy hat with an afro. And as it involves Steve Harvey, I'm relieved to report that its moral heart will remain intact, save for an unfathomable increase in saccharinity.

Nissan, Textism, Google bombing

2003-12-08T21:34:00.000-05:00

No. No. Nissan is mean. No. If you know why I'm mad at Nissan, you probably are too. If you don't know, you don't want to.

I came across this site, Textism. Mostly it's too esoteric to even think about mining through, but there's this one page where this guy reviews typefaces sold by Adobe for a hundred dollars each. That's a lot of money, but...I seriously find it fascinating that there are letter connoisseurs, and I feel left out for not getting it. Truthfully I just want to be able to look down my nose at your pedestrian Arials and Timeses and say things like, "Regrettably every book published between 1987 and 1991 was set in some bad Palatino or other; this may be why I watched so much television in those years."

In an attempt to figure out why certain things "I'm Feeling Lucky"-submitted to Google reliably return shocking results (try "miserable failure"), I found this interesting article on the technique of "Google bombing," manipulating Google's search results with blogs through a loophole in its algorithms. Clever.

POS is an ambiguous acronym

2003-12-06T16:53:00.000-05:00

Inspired by the sudden, straight-faced, relentless snow assault that's given Boston close to 12 inches in the last 24 hours, I did my best to find some webcams of the city, compiled here, to provide a view of our newly towering Siberian powder.

Samuel L. Jackson stars in Formula 51. I don't even know where to begin, how I got sucked into watching it on HBO in the first place, or how it manages to be so sublimely nauseating. Samuel L., as Elmo McElroy ([mackleroy]...I'm serious) wears a kilt, as far as I can tell only to provoke people into teasing him so he can get that Samuel L. Jackson smirk and kick their asses while giving us memorable quotes...quotes such as: "Aw, fuck. Can't a brother just deal some goddamn drugs?"; "Ain't that always the way: elevator music, a nigger in a kilt, and a chick with a nickle-plated nine."; and "Kiss the sun and taste the mother fuckin' rainbow!"

I could try to put into words its suckiness, but that would cheapen it. The last scene involves Meat Loaf exploding...literally exploding all over the walls, while SLJ shields himself with an umbrella, the super drug being dealt is exactly 51 times stronger than every other drug, but it's actually just a placebo effect, there's a castle, soccer hooligans shitting themselves, a sex scene cutaway to a rubber frog...no words. Here's the trailer.

Menomena, Experimental Dental School, etc.

2003-12-02T21:57:00.000-05:00

There's this band, Menomena. They're alright, but their website is especially brilliant. There's this other band, Experimental Dental School, and they're really good, not least of all because they offer their entire album for download at their website, as well as interactively bleeding robot insects.

Two albums I'm very happy with having purchased recently: Frog Eyes' The Bloody Hand and The Unicorns' Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?.

I just found out that Circulatory System released a new song, buried in a Wishing Tree Records compilation, and supposedly will unveil a second album at some point. I'd wait forever, I'm just shocked that there's going to be another one at all. And if you're into Elephant 6, you're into Jeff Mangum, and if you're into Jeff Mangum, you might be into viewing/hearing his setlists as a guest DJ on WFMU under the name Jefferson. You'll also enjoy his drug-encumbered interview at some British radio station.

The raging popularity of Dan Acton's squarelakecomics.com has finally led to its exploitation by the porn industry, relegating the preservation of the comic strip's glory, once again, to me: Square Lake.

Manila envelopes from India are lined with printed cloth.

Snow last night. Wind always.